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User blog:WaltWiz1901/My thoughts on Wood
First off, before I begin this post, I'm incredibly sorry for leaking and hinting at the recent redesign. If you thought the person I was handing out the phone number of was a stranger (no, the person who told me these changes were going to happen was not a stranger, make no mistake; I have actually met this person a couple of times) and I was trolling you with these questionable details, you're wrong. What I did was ask a package designer what was up with Wooden Railway at the time (more than a solid year ago, to be exact) and was met with multiple clues that foreshadowed what would become the most severe change that ever happened to the range, even more so than what was going on when I was born. I didn't realize that my initial post detailing the rumored redesign would make the "fandom" explode, a couple of users here question my knowledge of it, and eventually spark a custom that would both churn the pot even more and pave the way for the actual redesign within the span of nearly three months. Going on Twitter and finding out my prediction had gone viral with the fandom really alienated me at first, which wasn't helped by someone threatening to ban me for giving away a phone number that didn't work to him. Again, I'm sorry that I gave away the redesign months early and went through all this trouble. In future, I will not repeat this experience and will not give away this sort of information too early. Onto my thoughts on Wood itself... When I first started collecting the Wooden Railway range in 2003, the range had then went through a major change; the core cast was redesigned, "Thomas Track" had been introduced, and many products compatible with the non-rail vehicles were added. The first set I got of the range was very basic indeed, but at the same time, my fascination toward playing with it was the start of what would become a very big part of my life. Fast-forward to now, when I went into a Toys "R" Us store to get out a gift for Valentine's Day. When I walked past their Thomas section, I noticed that there wasn't a single Wooden Railway item on the pegs. It was then that I figured out they had removed every WR item from that section to make room for Wood; what had made up most of my childhood was gone. I know this is becoming a very unoriginal opinion, but I don't like Wood very much. Having been used to the "classic" design for less than 15 years as of this "writing", I agree with almost everyone here on Wood; it's a big step backward from what we have played with for decades and years. Even only looking at them on the internet, the redesigned engines - with some exceptions, like Yong Bao, Nia, and Beau - aren't very appealing at all. As BiggestThomasFan noted on his own blog post for Wood, one thing that has improved is that Stephen now has a separate tender. While I do share his thoughts on it, the way almost every engine looks, including Stephen, is not good - they're too blocky. The bigger engines are now the same length as the tank engines, which isn't great either. To add salt to the wound, their tenders are now bland, chunky squares. The range, unfortunately, has seen an increase in plastic usage. Despite the tiny improvement I have seen with the items displayed at this year's Toy Fair, almost every destination and set has an accessory that is made of plastic, which defeats the purpose of using more wood than what was on the shelf last year. The idea of making coaches able to hold a figure inside is a neat one, but the way it's executed is - and I feel like I'm repeating myself with this adjective - not good. In short, I am not going to buy a lot - or better yet, any - of Thomas Wood. As someone who has collected a new item yearly for 14+ years, I don't have any hope for the range if it continues in its current state. Category:Blog posts